Ritratti tra l’età repubblicana e la prima età imperiale

The National Archeological Museum in Venice preserves numerous Roman sculpture portraits that may be dated back to the first and second century AD. While in the process of being filed as part of the SHARED CULTURE project, these works have already provided numerous research hints regarding that ancient society and its art; this despite having been the object of previous studies. The inspiration for this paper came from the fine features of a youth, whose dating and attribution provided thus far we wished to discuss. We then compared it to other works available in the museum that portray similar subjects, by investigating the materials and techniques that were used, reconstructing whether they originated from heads, busts, or statues, ascertaining their original posture, and finally analysing the details of our descriptions. The works were then dated by means of tables, which helped to deepen our stylistic analysis regarding the choices of the artists compared to those of their clients. Finally, we discussed the attribution of the sculpture of the boy, a member of the gens augusta, the most likely hypothesis being that it is a portrait of Nero Caesar, son of Germanicus and Agrippina I.